Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department could seek Supreme Court intervention after federal judges repeatedly rejected the Trump administration’s efforts to obtain detailed voter registration records from states and Washington, D.C.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The Justice Department may take its escalating dispute over state voter rolls to the Supreme Court after suffering 22 court defeats in its effort to obtain detailed registration data for federal election-integrity investigations.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said a Supreme Court appeal remains under consideration as the Trump administration continues challenging states that have refused to provide voter information sought by the federal government.
“Absolutely, it’s a possibility,” Blanche said during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press”.
The legal confrontations stem from President Donald Trump’s executive order directing states to provide voter registration records containing names, dates of birth, addresses, driver’s license numbers and the final four digits of Social Security numbers.
The Justice Department says access to the information is necessary to examine whether noncitizens are appearing on voter rolls and whether other registration irregularities exist.
States have resisted those demands, producing a series of federal lawsuits over how far the Justice Department can go in obtaining state-controlled election records.
The department has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., seeking access to voter rolls after officials declined to surrender the requested information.
So far, federal judges have repeatedly sided with the states, with the Justice Department losing 22 cases challenging its efforts.
Blanche indicated that the string of losses would not cause the administration to abandon the initiative.
“Election integrity is something that President [Donald] Trump ran on, and the American people elected him. It’s something that every American should care about,” Blanche said.
He argued that federal scrutiny of election procedures should be considered a routine part of ensuring compliance with constitutional and legal requirements rather than something the Justice Department should avoid.
“The idea that the Department of Justice is trying to investigate issues around elections to make sure they’re fair and make sure they’re conducted the right way is not something that we should be running away from,” Blanche added. “That’s something we should be running right towards.”
The dispute centers not only on election administration but also on the respective powers of federal and state governments over voter registration records.
Trump’s executive order seeks extensive identifying information contained in state voter databases. The Justice Department has said reviewing those records could help investigators determine whether people who are not U.S. citizens have been improperly registered and whether other violations or irregularities have occurred.
States targeted by the lawsuits have declined to provide the requested voter information, prompting the administration to pursue the records through federal court.
With judges repeatedly rejecting the department’s position, Blanche said the administration remains prepared to continue litigating the issue.
“We’re not going to stop doing what I think every American should expect us to do, which is make sure that we have elections that are fair,” Blanche said.
He said the Justice Department also has a responsibility to investigate potential constitutional or legal violations involving elections even when the disputed conduct occurs at the state level.
“And as that relates to the Department of Justice, that means making sure that there are no constitutional legal violations, even at the state level,” Blanche added.
A Supreme Court appeal would potentially move the voter-roll dispute from a series of state-by-state federal lawsuits into a broader legal confrontation over federal access to election records.
For now, the administration continues to face adverse rulings in lower courts while maintaining that obtaining voter registration information is necessary to investigate noncitizen registration and other potential irregularities.
Blanche’s comments make clear that the Justice Department does not consider those lower-court defeats the end of the matter. With 22 losses already recorded and lawsuits involving 30 states and Washington, D.C., the administration is now openly considering whether the nation’s highest court should decide how far federal election-integrity investigations can reach into state voter databases.
Original article
Comments